Alesis today introduced the SamplePad 4, a compact percussion and sample-playing instrument.
SamplePad 4 comes equipped with four responsive, LED-illuminated rubber pads, dual-zone trigger input, and eight preset kits.
Users can tune and add reverb to their sounds. Intuitive navigation makes it easy to browse through kits and players can drag and drop their samples via USB on a Mac or PC without removing the SD card.
Features:
- 4 pads
- Built-in library of 25 percussion and electronic drum sounds
- 8 preset kits
- Add any sound sample to your drum or percussion setup via SD card
- Accepts SD/SDHC cards up to 32GB, storing 91 user kits and 512 samples per card
- Dynamic blue LED lighting provides clear visibility in any setting
- Intuitive navigation lets you browse through your kits with ease
- Drag and drop samples via USB on Mac or PC without removing the SD card
- USB-MIDI in/out
- Tune and add reverb to your sounds
- Dual Trigger input for expansion
“The SamplePad 4 combines every trait the modern electronic percussionist wants: it’s extremely capable with its built-in sounds and preset kits, has great expansion potential and is easy to play,” says Walter Skorupski, Product Manager for Alesis.
The Alesis SamplePad 4 is priced at US $179 and is expected to ship in 4Q 2015.
Why is this more than $100?
“Why is this more than $100?”
Because it’s not made for you?
These controllers are made with professional percussionists in mind, so they have to be build to handle getting hit with drumsticks for years.
Fair enough. I was feeling like nearly 200 for four samples was a tall ask, but wasn’t thinking too much about the durability.
Is this for use with sticks or hands?
It looks like a for hands but strange the two thiin pads at tthe top!
Are the pads velocity sensitive?
The thin pads are raised. Makes them easy to hit by changing the angle of your stick while keeping the total size down. Look pretty cool but the Roland one with the thin pads direction on the top edge of the machine was pretty much perfect for turning a 6 pad sized machine into a 9 pad machine.
I don’t think build-quality is one of Alesis’s strengths. The Alesis USB drum kit I had was pretty cheaply made. It worked ok– but it was clear that putting out the lowest quality possible for the highest price possible was the goal. And in that regard, it was a successful product.
Also, only “25 of percussion and electronic drum sounds”?! That seems like a typo. Perhaps that is “banks of”?
I’m sure it will have velocity sensing. What isn’t clear is whether you can map samples to velocity ranges for switching.
At $179 I easily pass on this! I’d rather get something better. BUT if it sold for $79? I’d still pass.
demo sounds?
Bill
It’s an sample playback instrument – so users are going to load up whatever sounds they want.
well at least what the play-ability is like
some sample play pads can add something to the sample
I think it’s great! Good price for somewhat of a percussive sampler, would be cool for live setups!
I applaud their blatant resistance to mini-keys.
This looks like a good product as long as the pads are of a high standard in terms of velocity sensitivity!
Hopefully they have figured out the cross talk issues from their sample pad pro…
I don’t remember if it was Alesis, but I recall there was some software fix where it would recognize triggers that were crosstalk and suppress them. Not sure if that is what they are using on this.
Give this eight Audio outs and the MPC line is finished.
Is this thing a 32 channel sequencer? No? Then what are you talking about?
At this price you can buy 4 and have an MPC 4Bears XL. Just think how big the laptop would be.
Reviews on the Sample Pad Pro kept me away. Cross talk and meltdowns. After a rather exhaustive search for a decent MIDI drumpad I ended up with an ancient DrumKat for $250. That thing is a beast! Of course if you’re looking for internal sampling that won’t help, but for MIDI I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Its a Percussion Pad…..okay, i am a percusionist,
& look @ the design and ask myself why did they put the pads over the screen and buttons??? and not under!
look @ HandPercussionPAds from Roland,….
or Korg Wavedrums, you can use the Ring around….got both
have to try it, and i will, but i think if i sit and lay my hands just down to play it natural like a conga a bongo a Djembe,….its like being downUnder….
So you can read the screen….
I think they are trying to hit some sweet spot for people who want a turn-key rig that is not more or less than needed.
For that money, I’d rather buy a used trigger box with TRS trigger ins, and maybe build little piezo triggers. I know it would ultimately cost more, but I’d have something that was configured the way I want it. And I could use an iPad or Mac for MIDI sample playback.
Kick… Snare… Kick… Snare….
It’s just s smaller, cheaper version of the sample pad pro, I believe. The pro has 8 banks of sounds, and each bank has 8 sounds on it for the pro, so 4 for the little guy each bank. They are pretty easy to edit sounds banks on. Crosstalk was pretty much negated with a firmware update, and you can edit sensitivity and velocity curves to further get rid of it, depending on how you play. I haven’t had an issue since that last update and 20 minutes of tweaking settings. The only problem I have with them is that switching banks takes a long time to load your samples, and the banks I made take absolutely eternity to load because of higher sample rates and size. Not exactly a fast processor on there. That said, once they’re loaded, they trigger nicely, as long as you’ve edited your samples well for starts and tails. I’m assuming this will also have the ability for dual layer samples, which is pretty neat, but I doubt it will have the open/close Hi hat function, where one pad cad end another’s sample immediately. They are definitely not made for hand drumming. This doesn’t compete with the Roland percussion pad or korg wave drum. It’s a cheap competition for the Roland spds pads, meant to be played with sticks, and they will take a hardcore beating. All that said, that’s from the sample pad pro, which is eight pads, but I am sure they are similar.
Hell no!!
Yet *another* repackaging of the dreadfully limited MPX-Engine… that’s ugly!
…greetings to Jack O’Donell!